Thanks these all did the trick. I especially like the toggle. However even after finding the solution I still could not find where any of this is documented. I would like to see an explanation of "string"; null. I find that adding only a semicolon (no nil)does the trick doc = Nokogiri::HTML(open(url)); # produces no display Can you point me to some documentation than may explain the solutions, so I know where to look next time. Thanks -- Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.